A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.